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Comment by xnx | Hacker News Reader

TikTok is where I find fun on the current internet. It's hilarious (Taylor Swift private jet memes), weird (grimace shake), surprising, emotionally moving (hopecore), educational (how to adjust a door closer), and always exposing me to things I've never seen (starting process for a diesel locomotive). It contains ads, but they're pretty easy to identify and very easy to skip.

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TikTok is like a Potemkin village propping up the idea that the Internet is still just regular people faffing around.

The reality is that TT, like all social media, puts people on a hamster wheel of 'content creation'. Post about this, not that. Post using code words if [geopolitical event] is advertiser-unfriendly. Post something every single day so that the algorithm deigns to distribute your post to randomly selected buckets of users across the globe.

I skip the ads on Tiktok too, but at this point, even regular videos desperate for engagement are effectively ads. Taylor Swift memes, or memes related to [popular IP] are ads, just delivered by unpaid civilians.

Knowing someone close to influencer marketing- even some are paid civilians...

A friend of mine was ranting about this as an influencer. The algorithm had determined that what people needed in their lives was videos of her putting decor on the top shelf of her kitchen. She tried to post varied content, but the only things that would get views was variations of her doing the exact same thing. Absolutely ridiculous.

I never liked how addictive short form content like TikTok/Shorts/Reels are, the way they hijack your attention into an endless stream of information (a lot of time useless, but of course you can cater to your tastes) that you just stare at and swipe-swipe-swipe feels dystopian to say the least.

I personally did an experiment on myself after I had issues watching long lectures being addicted to Youtube shorts, went on a complete detox; uninstalled Instagram, only used NewPipe and my attention span skyrocketed within 2-3 weeks.

I cannot recommend enough for people to take a break from short form content like this.

I successfully evaded TikTok for years only to get accidentally sucked in once Instagram added their copycat. It made me delete the app off my phone; the format is too potent and (like you) had a deleterious impact on my productivity and attention span.

I am allergic to video content. I don't use the tiktok app or website, and I only ever watch a facebook or instagram reel if someone sends it to me, I never click through the UI to get to them. There's something so infuriating about not knowing how long you're going to be held hostage for, whether it will be worth it, whether the volume will be on or off... I just hate it.

This is a tragic comment because 1) TikTok never holds you hostage, you can flip through all videos (including ads) instantly. 2) TikTok content is an order of magnitude better than what makes its way to reels. 3) TikTok's algorithm customizes itself to your interests based on what you watch so effortlessly and quickly.

Thanks for the laugh. Next up an cyanide pill that allows you loose weight.

> TikTok never holds you hostage, you can flip through all videos (including ads) instantly.

Dark UI is in play to keep you hostage. The instant gratification is designed to keep your mind hostage.

> TikTok content is an order of magnitude better than what makes its way to reels

It's specifically selected. There is a bar you have to meet if you wish to be on the main screen.

> TikTok's algorithm customizes itself to your interests based on what you watch so effortlessly and quickly.

In comparison this is like offering an alcoholic to try an NIPA when only promising to let them have an single IPA.

But TikTok is not the internet, it's just a service. Even if TikTok is universally considered "fun", and it isn't, that still doesn't speak to the proposition that the internet as a whole has lost most of its fun.

consuuuume

Like it or not, its interaction model lends to readily democratized production more than anything — making memorable artifacts out of interactions that would be as low in effort as the above comment.

This wasn't a sarcasm? Honestly, I am undecided.

(I don't like TikTok and everything it stands for)

Do you have an accurate model of what TikTok is though? Does anyone?

Surveillance, profit and evil.

We are talking about an app made in one of the most surveillance states of the world, heavily moderated to that where if you don't look pretty your binned and making profit off the data you provide.

This is a description of one method of generating an estimate of what it is (a method which itself may be a consequence of western propaganda, but certainly of western culture)...more interesting in my opinion is estimates of methods for accurately determining what it is.

Leave your bubble occasionally and you may find that many of the creatives who might have populated Geocities or Usenet — were they born 20 years earlier — are carving out niche audiences with 300 views on TikTok.

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